Page 5 of They Call Me Blue

“Elgrew can sense their bite up to a mile away, making it nearly impossible for the Claimed to hide. It is for this reason most tribes refuse to grant the Claimed sanctuary, including ours.”

—Tanlis of Brekken, Historian of the Lok’owe Tribe.

I stare at the bite mark long after Lyrick has left. It doesn’t hurt, but it feels wrong —like a piece of him is trapped inside me. I want it gone. I need it gone. Every second that it remains makes me want to crawl out of my skin.

“He bit you,” Nirissa says.

I force my gaze away and hide my bleeding palm behind my back. “It’s nothing, bug. Let’s get you patched up.”

Lowering myself to the forest floor, I drop my go-bag and scoot closer to her, examining the wound that stupid cat left. Her pants are shredded, and silver blood oozes from the deep claw marks on her thigh. It isn’t fatal—not unless infection sets in. Still, it’ll be impossible to walk on.

One-handed, I fumble with the pouch Lyrick gave me, not quite sure what to expect inside. Relief washes over me at the sight of black ossi dust—more than I’ve ever seen in my entire life. An amount no singular person could ever hope to use.

Why would he give me this?

Briefly, I scan the tree line where the Hunter disappeared, my brows furrowed in confusion.

Mercy isn’t a trait I’d expect from their kind.

Then again, neither is restraint. Nirissa should be dead right now.

I should be in the city, under the Grand Overseer’s thumb.

Instead, Lyrick has given us a chance to survive—to get stronger and fight him another day.

I won’t squander it.

Pushing him from my mind, I dig through my go-bag in search of first-aid supplies.

A pair of ivory shears and spooled gauze lie near the bottom, hidden beneath a thick hide blanket, jarred food rations, fire-starting equipment, and water skins.

Unraveling the gauze, I cut a portion off and wrap it around my bleeding hand, tying the ends into a knot with the help of my teeth.

Dry cotton clings to my tongue, but I ignore it, returning my attention to Nirissa.

Her pants are ruined. Still, snipping them feels wrong. Unlike elgrew, we don’t have textile manufacturing. Everything of ours is made by hand, using plant fibers and animal skins. A new pair might take weeks to make, and in the meantime, she’ll be exposed to the elements.

It physically pains me to cut along the hem, the snip, snip, snip loud in the otherwise abandoned forest. I slice to the very top of her thigh, then peel the fabric back, exposing Nirissa’s ripped flesh to the humid air.

Choking back a sob, she clamps her eyes tightly shut.

Her body goes painfully still as I grab a pinchful of ossi dust and sprinkle it over the wound.

Like magic, the bleeding ebbs then stops. A thin layer of dark gray skin grows over the deep crevices, but it’s too weak to support her weight, and it’ll still need stitches if the muscle is to fully heal. Even then, she may never walk right again.

“This is going to hurt,” I warn her. “But I need you to hold still. Can you do that for me?”

Sniffling, she nods, clutching her wooden doll to her chest. “I’m ready.”

The needle and spool Lyrick gave me are finer than anything I’m used to. The silver thread is hard to see—almost invisible. After several tries, I force it through the eye of the needle and bend over my sister.

“I’ll be fast,” I say, and then I plunge the needle in, recalling old lessons the healers taught me. Sewing hide isn’t much different from sewing elf skin, and I am fast—my fingers steady and sure as I join the wounds together. Snipping the thread, I scoot back to examine my handiwork.

Perfect.

“You did such a good job,” I tell her. Nirissa doesn’t cry, but I can tell she wants to, so I scoop her into my arms and soothe her the way our parents used to when she'd injure herself. “You were so brave today.”

“I want Mom,” she says.

“I know, bug.”

Nirissa stares up at me with glassy, hope-filled eyes. “Maybe she’ll be at camp.”

I can’t bring myself to lie to her, so I stroke her hair instead. In three days, we’ll join the other survivors at our predesignated meeting spot. Until then, I’ll let her pretend. It’s the least I can do after everything she’s been through.

Nirissa curls into my chest. She holds me until her limbs grow heavy and her eyelids fall shut. Once I’m certain she’s asleep, I lay her against the tree stump and cover her in a hide blanket, then I contemplate my own injuries.

An eerie numbness spreads from Lyrick’s bite mark up my fingertips and wrist. Indigo blood seeps through the gauze in the shape of a circle—thirty-eight dots that brand me as his.

I have to get rid of it.

Not only can he track me through the bite, but he can use it to track my friends too.

Wiggling my ears, I listen to the burned forest. Vibrations travel through my sezin —a small, crescent-shaped bone in the center of my ear canal—and the sounds around me amplify.

The gentle breeze becomes a cyclone. Grassworms slither deep beneath my feet.

From a mile north comes the faint, thumping pawsteps of what can only be verncats headed toward Kariss.

No other animal or elgrew is within hearing range. Thank Marr.

Still, the tension in my shoulders doesn’t ease. Predators or not, I’ll need to act fast. The forest never stays safe for long.

I keep Nirissa in eyesight—close enough that I could protect her, or at least try, if the verncats change course.

Then I begin gathering charred sticks, piling them into a small, makeshift campfire the way Dad taught me.

The sun sinks lower and lower into the downed canopy, the sky shifting from chartreuse to emerald to a green so dark it could almost be black.

By the time I’m finished, puffy gray clouds litter the sky, and the air turns humid with the promise of rain.

It’ll start any minute now.

Squinting into the moonlight, I pull tinder from my go-bag—an edible yellow fungus in the shape of a fan—and set it onto my pile of scrap wood.

A jar of flammable oils lies amongst my food rations.

Holding my breath, I uncap it and douse the campfire, then I grab the pointiest stick I can find and drill it into another, rolling it back and forth in my palms until it sparks.

I scoot the tinder closer, then fan that spark into a flame.

The yellow fungus goes up in a plume of bitter smoke.

My eyes water.

My nose burns.

Sniffling, I wipe my face before scooting back to watch the orange flames hiss, and crackle, and lick across the wood. Thunder rumbles in the distance and lightning streaks across the skyline, igniting it in a flash of silver.

It’s now or never.

I unwind the bandage that conceals my palm. The skin is raised and raw near each puncture, but there’s still no pain—just that cold numbness spreading to my forearm, then my bicep. I clench and unclench my fist, hesitating, my courage wavering as raindrops patter onto nearby leaves.

“I’m not his,” I whisper, my voice cracking.

I repeat the words until I believe them, and then I do what’s necessary to make them true.

Closing my eyes, I thrust my palm into the raging fire and fight back a scream. Burning pain shoots up my palm, blistering hot, but I bite my tongue and force myself not to jerk away.

I refuse to be branded by one of those things.

Skin melts. Blood boils.

I count to ten, then to fifteen.

My body sways, and finally, I fall back, my head smacking into the dirt. Burned and bleeding—with no strength left to get back up—I lift my heavy palm into the sky and crack open my eyes. Scorched and blackened skin greets me, everything a mess of blood and ash. But there’s no bite mark.

I grin—a big, toothy smile. Laughter bubbles up between my cracked and peeling lips as the icy rain starts to pour.

I’m not his and I never will be.

A rainbow shines overhead.

Silver fish dart from one side of the river to the other, disappearing into crystalline jade-green water. I hiss when my improvised spear strikes cobble—not the roundtail I’d intended —and drives all the other fishes away. That was the third miss since this morning.

The steady current carries my sharpened stick downstream, and I sink onto the muddy river bank—no more spears left.

Unrelenting sun plasters the clothes to my body, covering me in a layer of body odor and half-dried, sulfurous mud.

A fingerless leather glove protects my charred hand, but it still burns.

Even with ossi dust, the skin’s regrowth is agonizingly slow.

Sun-blistered and tired, I groan, rolling onto my back beneath the shade of an orangeleaf tree. Within eyesight, Nirissa refills our water skins.

We’re almost home.

“Got it!” she says, lifting the flasks triumphantly. Nirissa juggles them in her too-full hands, sharing the space with her twiggy doll. Limping, she climbs the bank to sit beside me.

“No fish?” she asks, the disappointment heavy in her voice.

“No fish.”

Nirissa sets the flasks down but hugs her doll close. “Maybe I can help.”

I wipe the sweat from my brow and shake my head. At Nirissa’s insistence, I let her throw the first stick; it didn’t even hit the bottom before floating off—not that I thought it would. At five years old, she can hardly be expected to do better.

I was expected to do better . Mom and Dad didn’t baby me.

I push aside those jealous thoughts, burying them deep. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s good that one of us knows how to survive.

“This is my job,” I tell her, ruffling her short silver hair. “Why don’t you look for fish eggs near the bank?”

“ Ewww . I don’t want fish eggs again.” She scrunches her nose at me. “I saw jurry berries across the river. Why can’t we eat those?”

“Because neither of us can swim. It gets deep in the middle.”

At my sound logic, her protests fall silent.

Still, my mouth salivates as I picture those dark berries squishing between my teeth.

It would be so good to taste something that isn’t fish eggs, or mushrooms, or jerky for a change.

But even if we could swim, it wouldn’t be safe.

Elgrew trap those areas, knowing our food preferences as well as we do.

At least with the river between us, we stand a chance at escape—albeit, a small one.

I swallow down the cravings as quickly as they emerge.

Practical and alive beats foolish and dead any time.

Pushing off the ground, I smooth out my clothing, loosening dried flakes of mud and moss.

“Let’s walk a little farther upstream. If the jurry bushes are fruiting, I bet the bluewood trees are too. ”

Nirissa’s face brightens. “Bluewoods? Are we almost there?”

“We’ll reach camp by nightfall.”

She hops up and hugs my pant leg. The doll digs sharply into my thigh. “I bet Mom and Dad are worried about us.”

My insides twist, but I say nothing, just hum in agreement. I’ve never been great at comforting people; surely Dad will know what to say to her when the time comes. He always does.

Snatching my go-bag from a low-hanging tree branch, I readjust it before lifting Nirissa into my arms, grunting at the heavy weight. Only a few more hours and my aching muscles can finally rest. A few more miles and I can close my eyes without fearing the elgrew will find us.

“Let's head out,” I say, reaching for our flasks. I take a long swig of cool water, soothing the ache in my dry throat. Then, I get my bearings and head south.

This close to the river, I can’t use my sezin—amplifying the current’s sound would deafen me—so I’m forced to rely on my eyes instead.

Tall grasses hide almost everything from view.

Orangeleafs surround us, promising their protection in the canopy, but Nirissa is still too injured to climb on her own, and she isn’t strong enough to hold onto my neck for more than a few minutes.

We’re condemned to walking, and I’ve never felt so exposed.

My hairs stand on end as we weave through the undergrowth, twigs snapping and mud squelching underfoot. Between our body odor and lack of stealth, we’re practically beacons to predators—not just elgrew, but black bears, wild cats, and snakes too.

Slowly, the grasses fade into thin bluewood trees as tall as the elgrews’ tenement buildings. The noises of the forest vanish—insects, birds, skittering rodents all going silent. Each step sounds as loud as a thunderclap.

I keep scanning for threats, still too close to the river to use my sezin. Something thumps to my right and I swivel my head in that direction, only to find a large stone at the foot of a tree. My brows furrow in confusion.

“Why’d you stop?” Nirissa asks.

“Nothing.” Goosebumps spread along my arms, but I force myself forward.

Another thump. Another stone falls to my right.

Wind howls through the trees, and I hug Nirissa tighter, quickening my pace. Behind us, leaves rustle. Heart pounding, I turn to investigate as something large leaps from up above—a dark shadow in my periphery.

My bloodcurdling shriek rips through the afternoon sky as it lands beside us and lunges.